Landowners shut out in Highlands debates

Highlands debates
You recently reported that 13 key environmental groups sent a formal complaint to DEP Commissioner Bob Martin last month (“DEP finds dialogues a subject of debate,” April 24). The article said they submitted a “litany of grievances, included being outnumbered by what they call special interests at the meetings and not being heard at their turn at the podium.”

The hypocrisy is astounding. Since the passage of the Highlands Act in 2004, environmentalists have sought to silence landowners harmed by the most egregious regulatory taking of property values in our country’s history, with more than $6 billion of farmers’ savings vaporized by the rushed stroke of former Gov. Jim McGreevey’s pen days before he resigned. The environmentalists have stacked public meetings focused on landowner concerns with members of the Sierra Club pretending to be stakeholders and drowning out the voices of the real harmed landowners.

During the Jon Corzine administration, landowners were never invited to meet with the governor to share their grievances, while the environmentalists had his ear daily. When farmland owners spoke out and requested representation, the environmentalists attacked them personally, calling them speculators, dirty polluters and extremists.

The environmental groups are lobby organizations. Their anti-Gov. Chris Christie public relations campaign, currently in high gear, has been extraordinarily expensive. We can put a stop to the so-called environmentalists’ unethical ways by not giving them money.Deborah Post, Chester

Literature’s benefits
I was heartened to read that hospitals in New Jersey are turning to literature to help doctors improve patient care (“N.J. hospitals take ‘novel’ approach to patient care,” April 27).

In my 34 years of teaching English, many science-oriented students questioned why they had to read literature when they wanted to become doctors. This article said it all. By learning to read between the lines and discern the subtext (inferential reading, we call it), doctors will have tools to listen to their patients in a different way and perhaps come to a diagnosis faster. The same applies to looking at a painting or listening to a piece of music. The liberal arts are important for scientists as well as humanities students.

Besides, reading can make one a more interesting person. After all, most of us don’t want to discuss tests and anatomy in a social situation with a doctor/dentist/scientist friend.Ruth Ross, West Orange

Allow medical marijuana
Thank you for helping to expose Gov. Chris Christie’s undermining of New Jersey’s medical marijuana law (“Smoke and mirrors,” April 25).

As an MS patient of 14 years and father of three daughters, I am at my journey’s end trying to treat my multiple sclerosis with anything other than medical marijuana. This comes after trying every prescription narcotic available. I’ve also been denied surgery by three of the best surgeons in New Jersey. All the while, I have been attending physical therapy and using several holistic remedies. But nothing works as well as marijuana.

It is a crime to deny seriously ill residents the medical benefits of marijuana. This current administration does not wish to see this law ever in effect. It has denied us sick people relief for nearly two years.

With any luck, state Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D-Union), the law’s sponsor, will prevail to correct these wrongs.

We can only pray.Charles Kwiatkowski, Hazlet

Compassion lacking
Once again, our governor shows his lack of compassion. This time Nero fiddles while medical marijuana does not burn. His lack of concern for those suffering patients for whom medical marijuana can offer relief is astounding. Jeffrey R. Mark, Chatham

Amnesty is wrong
The deceitfulness of the Progressive Media Project, claiming the court of appeals ruling that Arizona’s anti-immigration law is unconstitutional, is nothing unexpected (“Ruling in Arizona shows feds must fix immigration,” April 25). Rather than a rejection of perceived racism and the embracement of amnesty that the PMP would have liked, the ruling only reaffirms that the provisions of the law are reserved for the federal government, the one that had, for decades — and still does under the Obama administration — refused to step up to do the job.

The future of our country lies in embracing the rule of just laws. Amnesty is wrong. It rewards those who broke a law of the United States on the very first day they came to the country. It is unfair to, and penalizes, those who followed the law. It is highly doubtful that Americans want the utopian idea of open borders that amnesty implies. Ronald Weinger, Berkeley Heights

Know the rules in advance
All of the Democrats who are crying the blues because Carl Lewis didn’t have the required credentials to run for the state Senate should have reviewed the credentials prior to his filing and told him he came up short. But the Democrats didn’t do that and now look for a scapegoat — Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and, of course, Gov. Chris Christie.

The Democrats appear to be those who want to make the rules to ensure a win. When Carl Lewis performed in the Olympics, do you think the rules should have been changed so he could have a 20-yard head start on the others in the field?

Not in the Olympics, and not in the senatorial race. J. Fischer, West Caldwell